The Truce Page 11

  That made sense. Catawba wasn’t that far away as the crow flies. Beck could’ve hitched a ride—or hopped a coal or freight train to get to Big Vein. Even if he walked the whole way, he could’ve been here in a few days.

  Uncle Ash and Miss Spencer clinked their pop bottles together—and took long, congratulatory drinks.

  “Well, I found his dog tag.” Bone raised her grape Nehi.

  Uncle Ash almost spit out his pop.

  “But it’s not like the one you have,” she added. She was sure it belonged to the German.

  Uncle Ash pulled out his tag and Beck’s.

  Bone didn’t even have to look. “Nope, this one was bigger and with a line down the middle, like you could snap it in half.”

  Uncle Ash smacked his forehead. “Of course, he would have gotten a new tag when he rejoined the army. Ours look different for this war, too.”

  “How do you know it was his?” Miss Spencer asked. “Did it have his name on it?”

  “No.” Bone hesitated and then pulled out the piece of brown paper she’d written the numbers and letters on. “It just had this on it.”

  Uncle Ash studied her pencil scratchings a bit. “This could be his service number, and this one his unit. The ‘pz’ probably stands for panzer. That’s German for tank.”

  “How are you sure it’s his?” Miss Spencer pressed.

  Bone looked at Uncle Ash.

  “Bone has a Gift—like mine, but not like mine,” he said simply.

  “Oh,” Miss Spencer replied and didn’t press it further.

  Uncle Ash had told her about the Gifts! Bone couldn’t tell if Miss Spencer believed him or not. Mamaw always said it was only knowledge for family and loved ones. Oh.

  “Let’s just say her method of knowing wouldn’t be accepted in a court of law—but it’s a powerful Gift.” He clinked his bottle against Bone’s. “Who had this tag?”

  “Robbie Matthews.”

  Uncle Ash’s boots slid clean off the railing.

  She explained how she’d egged Robbie into bringing in some of his father’s souvenirs.

  “This changes things, don’t it?” Uncle Ash pushed the brim of his hat back before polishing off his Dr Pepper.

  Miss Spencer looked quizzically at them. “Who?”

  “His father is the mine superintendent. And Robinson Matthews never did fight in the Great War at all.” Uncle Ash explained how Mr. Matthews’s father had gotten him a cushy posting as a supply clerk in Washington, DC, and he had a reputation for wheeling and dealing “souvenirs” with clerks on the front lines.

  “Maybe he bought the tag from someone—or found it,” Miss Spencer said.

  “True. I never figured he had the sand to fight—let alone kill—someone.” He whispered the last part, nodding at Mrs. Linkous as she walked into the store. “Did you get a chance to see anything…useful?” he asked Bone.

  She knew what he meant. Did she see who killed Beck? She shook her head. “Robbie is bringing the tags to the dance. I wanted another chance to look at it.”

  “Oh, is he?” Uncle Ash ran his fingers through his hair. “I may have to make another call.”

  “But what about Uncle Junior?” Bone asked. Or Daddy? Or Will? Bone wanted to find out the man’s story but not at the expense of their jobs. But then there was Tiny.

  Uncle Ash thought on it as he lit, smoked, and fieldstripped a Lucky Strike. “We’ve got to do this for Tiny, but I’ll warn Junior first.”

  That was fair.

  THE CONVERSATION WITH UNCLE JUNIOR evidently wasn’t going well. The brothers shouted at each other in the parlor. Mrs. Price, Miss Spencer, and Miss Johnson tried to drown them out with running water and loud gossip over the dishes. And Bone shivered out on the back porch as she filled in Will—and the boys—quietly on what she’d discovered.

  She pinky swore Jake and Clay into silence. She didn’t tell them how she knew certain things—and they didn’t ask.

  “Beck probably got off the train and hid while the night shift was loading the coal,” she concluded.

  “Then he surprised whoever was stealing it,” Clay added.

  “And wham!” Jake mimicked swinging a shovel.

  Bone shivered again. This time she punched Jake in the arm.

  But that was what happened, near as she could figure. And then a mine truck full of coal raced away, with its lights off.

  She could put most of the pieces together: how Beck got there and what happened when he did. But the whodunit part was still fuzzy. And something…actually two somethings were bothering her about the tipple and that truck.

  “Wouldn’t the night shift notice if a truck was loaded up after the train?” Bone asked. The tipple was noisy, deafening even if you were underneath it. Somebody would’ve heard it running if it wasn’t supposed to be.

  Will and the boys exchanged a look. Then Will nodded. “The outside man would.”

  The outside man on the night shift was Tiny Sherman. No, not Tiny. He couldn’t have.

  “Tiny wouldn’t be part of something like this,” Clay said, echoing Bone’s thoughts.

  “Wouldn’t need to be,” Will said. He’d been thinking about this, she could tell. He tapped his little notebook. “Paperwork.”

  “Of course!” Jake said, nodding. “Daddy would load anything as long as the paperwork was in order.” He explained how he’d helped his father keep track of the orders. The papers said how many car or truckloads were going out and what size coal to put in them.

  So Tiny could’ve loaded that truck just as part of his job, not knowing someone was stealing it, as long as he had the paperwork. Bone felt relieved about that. Something else was still niggling at her, though.

  “When y’all load the trucks, is there usually a mess?” Bone asked. That was the other part that didn’t make sense.

  Jake and Clay both shook their heads. “Not when Daddy runs the tipple, leastwise,” Jake added.

  “Mr. Matthews blamed Tiny, didn’t he?” Bone said. “Could he have hit the wrong switch and dumped too much coal in the truck?” Mr. Sherman was new at running the tipple.

  “You could fill up the hopper for a train car—and dump it on a truck, but—” Clay started laughing.

  “But you’d bury the truck,” Jake finished for him.

  “Train car holds about eighty tons. The dump truck,” Will squinted as he figured, “maybe holds twenty, give or take.”

  “We didn’t shovel no sixty tons of coal before school.” Clay laughed again.

  “Could the tipple miss the truck by just a tetch?” Bone held her thumb and forefinger an inch or so apart.

  The boys considered it.

  “Yeah, if the truck parked too far forward,” Jake allowed. “But most of the regular drivers been doing this for years.”

  “And they’d get docked if’n their loads were light,” Clay added. His older brothers had driven trucks before they’d gone into the navy.

  “Unless it wasn’t one of the regulars,” Bone said. Somebody new—or maybe not even on the payroll of the Superior Anthracite company—had been driving that truck the night Beck died. But he must have had help. While that truck was racing away, somebody dragged the body down into the mine, somebody who didn’t know lime from rock dust. And that somebody took one of the German’s dog tags or it got yanked off in the struggle. And that dog tag ended up in Mr. Matthews’s collection.

  The boys seemed to follow her thoughts.

  “Those numbers you wrote down,” Clay whispered. “From the dog tag.”

  “Criminy,” Jake said.

  “I gave them to Uncle Ash. The army should be able to identify the man from that. But that’s what my uncles are fighting about.”

  The front door jangled and slammed shut, and the house behind them grew quiet. The only sound was the distant chugging of
a train coming toward Big Vein.

  Bone and the boys watched two flashlight beams make their way up the mine road—toward the tipple. Will tapped his watch: 8:13 p.m.

  Uncle Ash was taking Junior to see the ghost dog.

  Bone told the boys her plan to get another look at the tag.

  BONE DIDN’T HEAR EITHER JUNIOR OR ASH come in that night. In the morning, Uncle Junior was already at work, as usual, by the time Mrs. Price rapped on Bone’s door.

  Did they decide to call the army? Should she go ahead with her plan? Bone pulled on her britches and sweater. The sweater was no help. She needed to see the rest of Beck’s story, to see who really killed him. For Uncle Ash. For Mr. Sherman. She couldn’t let the story smother and die like the man had. Like Uncle Ash almost did.

  As Bone came down the back stairs, she heard Aunt Mattie, of all people, in the kitchen.

  “Mother is helping out that Sherman woman again today,” she said, clearly peeved at the idea.

  “Oh law, I hope she stays safe,” Mrs. Price said, shaking her head. “I heard that certain people are planning a visit to Sherman’s Forest before Christmas,” she added in a hushed tone.

  Bone peered into the kitchen, feeling sick to her stomach. The Klan was planning to burn a cross, or worse, in Aunt Queenie’s community. What if her plan didn’t work?

  “Them getting a Richmond lawyer just riled up the wrong element,” Aunt Mattie chided. She sat at the kitchen table, impatiently stirring her coffee.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Mrs. Price called extra loud from the ironing board. Wiping her hands, she pulled a plate of scrambled eggs and toast out from the oven and placed it in front of Bone.

  “Mother asked me to help you get ready for the dance tonight,” Aunt Mattie said stiffly, looking Bone up and down, just like old times.

  Mrs. Price snorted. Aunt Mattie ignored her.

  “I don’t need your help,” Bone told Mattie. Thinking about dresses—with Aunt Mattie—was the last thing she needed today. Bone plopped down in front of her eggs.

  Mrs. Price retrieved a white-and-yellow polka-dot dress from the ironing board. Holding it up, she told Bone, “I finished taking in this one of your mother’s. It’ll look lovely with your sweater.” She held it up to the yellow.

  It did look lovely. Mama had worn both to church in the spring.

  “She cannot wear white after Labor Day, Lydia!” Aunt Mattie touched the hem of the white dress and almost smiled. “Willow wore this when she was courting Bayard.” Mattie disappeared into the memory—and then shook herself. “She wore this in the summer. You can have one of Ruby’s old dresses. Something more appropriate to catch a beau.”

  “No, thank you!” Aunt Mattie was always trying to fix her, and Bone was not having it anymore. “I’m not looking for a beau—or your help.” She yanked the dress away from her aunt. Mattie rose up from the table as if she were going to launch into Bone with one of her tirades. Bone beat her to it. “I tried to make nice with you months ago, you know, after you tried to drown me in your bathtub and all.” Her voice caught. “But you’ve done your level best to either take potshots at me or ignore me since then. Uncle Ash asked me to declare a truce with you for Christmas—even though you treat him awful. Then when you thought he was dead, you couldn’t wait to bury him! You didn’t even want to sit with us at the funeral or let his friends from Sherman’s Forest into the church. Then you had the gall to get mad at Uncle Ash when it turned out Mamaw and me were right. That it wasn’t him after all!” She handed the dress back to Mrs. Price and pulled her sweater tight around her. She saw Mama putting the butter-yellow sweater over her ailing sister. “I wanted to tell you the story of this sweater.” Bone’s voice caught again. She took a deep breath and looked Aunt Mattie in the eye. “You still blame Uncle Ash for Mama. Truth is Mama loved you enough to die for you. But I’ve had enough.

  “Thank you,” she told Mrs. Price. Bone sat back down to eat her eggs, determined not to look at her aunt.

  Aunt Mattie stood motionless, almost hanging in the air for a long moment. Then she disappeared out the back door without a word.

  * * *

  The dance wasn’t as fancy as past ones. Of course, with the war on and Uncle Henry gone, it wasn’t a surprise. Only a few streamers hung from the rafters of the church hall. But it smelled like Christmas. Real holly branches and pine cones decorated the tables spread around the edge of the dance floor. The long folding tables near the front were laden with Christmas cookies and cakes. Everyone had saved up their sugar rations for tonight. Christmas music poured out of the big speakers on the floor. And there was actually a Christmas tree in the corner this year after all.

  Bone adjusted her white-and-yellow polka-dot dress, her legs feeling positively naked, and straightened her butter-yellow sweater. Will had on his brown Sunday suit and a red tie. He tugged at the too-short sleeves.

  “You clean up real nice.” Jake elbowed her. Clad in his Sunday best, too, Jake was escorting his little sister, Joan.

  “You look like a scarecrow,” Clay said to Will—who promptly socked him in the arm.

  Joan ran off to join her friends by the Christmas tree. Santa (aka Mr. Scott) usually left some candy or small presents for the little ones under the tree every year.

  “Keep an eye peeled for Robbie,” Bone told the boys.

  “Don’t worry. We know what to do,” Clay reassured Bone.

  “Look, cake!” Jake exclaimed. He and Clay made a beeline toward the dessert table. Ruby sliced them each a big hunk of stack cake.

  Will mimed drinking and nodded toward the punch. And he was off, too.

  A Glenn Miller tune played over the speakers. It was one of Daddy’s favorites. Bone circled the hall watching. Aunt Mattie glumly doled out cups of punch. Bone refused to look at her. The Linkous twins twirled the Slusser sisters around on the floor. The boys ate cake and talked football. Miss Johnson and Miss Spencer sipped coffee at one of the tables. But there was no sign of Uncle Junior or Uncle Ash.

  Robbie Mathews burst into the room—until a deep voice behind him told him to slow down. It was his father. Another first. Dadgummit. How was she going to do this? She eyed the side door. It led out to the little area between the church and the hall.

  Robbie caught Bone’s eye and patted his pocket, throwing a quick glance toward his daddy. Robbie had a corsage tucked in his other pocket, and he about stuck Ruby trying to get the corsage on. With a little help from Mamaw, he succeeded in pinning it to Ruby’s green-and-red dress. Mr. Matthews glanced at Bone and then smiled at Aunt Mattie as she approached him with a cup of punch.

  “Observing the little stories as they play out?” Miss Spencer appeared at Bone’s side with an extra cup of punch. “You know that’s what writers do.”

  So do detectives. She took the fruit punch and sipped it as she scanned the room.

  “Your uncle and I have been talking about you. You could be a writer or maybe even a historian.”

  Miss Spencer and Uncle Ash had been doing a lot of talking.

  “Where is Uncle Ash?” Bone asked.

  “He’ll be here soon. He said he had to see a man about a dog first.”

  Of course, someone’s dog was probably ailing or hurt. He couldn’t turn down a sick animal. But Bone sure wished she knew what he and Junior decided.

  “You’ve got a gift for stories, he says. And doing the right thing. Like your uncle.”

  Was Miss Spencer trying to tell her something? Or was Uncle Ash?

  “Um, Bone.” Miss Spencer pointed. “Someone is trying to get your attention.”

  “Bone!” Jake not so subtly called her. The boys were gathered around Robbie at a table near the side exit, their backs to Robbie’s dad. Clay socked Jake in the arm. “Ow!”

  Even Aunt Mattie noticed. She glared at Bone as she made her way to the table. Bone glared right back. M
attie kept watching as Mr. Matthews, who hadn’t missed a beat, droned on at Mattie about something or other.

  Bone pushed in between Will and Clay. Robbie had laid out a glittering array of medals and dog tags. He deployed several comic books to cover the booty when anyone walked by and peered too closely.

  “What’s that one?” Clay asked, pointing to a medal with a cross dangling from it.

  “Daddy won it for bravery!” Robbie really believed it. He wanted his daddy so desperately to like him that he would believe anything that man said—and wanted everyone else to believe it, too.

  “You don’t say!” Jake elbowed Bone. “What did he do?”

  Robbie launched into a long story about his daddy’s company fighting a battle with the Germans. Bone scanned the table as Robbie told them how his daddy snuck around their lines and picked them off from the back one by one. Just like wild turkeys. The tale sounded suspiciously like that Gary Cooper movie, Sergeant York. This time Will elbowed her—then slipped a napkin-wrapped something into her hand. The dog tag. Even through the paper, she could feel it was Beck’s. The woman. The children. The dogs. They were all older but still the same. Bone backed slowly away from the table toward the side exit. As she did, she tipped the punch onto her dress. “Sorry Mama,” Bone whispered.

  “Dang it!” Bone dabbed the punch with the napkin. “I’ll be right back.”

  Robbie kept on talking. Aunt Mattie called out something about getting the club soda.

  Bone slipped out the side door into the cool breeze. She could breathe again. She sat on the little steps outside. This is where the men came to smoke after church, out of sight. She unwrapped the tag amidst the stench of old cigar butts and held it up to the dim porch light. Music seeped through the door. And train brakes ground against the rail down below as the 8:15 inched through the tipple.

  How did you get here? Bone saw him picking apples in an orchard. Behind him loomed the mountains with the unmistakable blue haze of home, her home, along its ridges. He ducked out through the woods, running until he reached train tracks. Following them, he stole clothes from a clothesline and buried his uniform by a creek. He walked along the tracks but hid as coal cars rumbled by, jumping onto an empty freight car. She felt his exhilaration as the Blue Ridge flew past him, smell of pines, road cuts streaked with coal and narrow bridges over flowing waters. The gentle rocking of the train lulled him to sleep. He awoke when the train’s brakes screeched, slowing it onto a spur. Peering out into the night, Beck saw the brakeman’s lantern illuminate the tiny sign by the switch: Big Vein. His stop. Ash’s home. Beck buttoned up his coat and waited for the right moment to jump off. In the dark, the train rolled under the tipple, the machinery whirring to life. The wood and metal shaking and tumbling the coal down into the chutes, releasing a thunderous black rain. The train inched forward, brakes squealing, coal dropping. Again and again. Beck leapt to the hard ground and hid in the shadows of the tipple. After the train pulled away, he stepped out into the dim moonlight. A truck rolled up, and something hard swung down on Beck.